Can't see Stereo Mix on Dell Inspiron 7520

Thank you very much.. im so lucky , i have the Dell Inspiron 7520 too
you helped me alot ..

SeanieOS said:

I got it working!

The solution involved making changes to the .inf driver file and re-installing that file. Here I explain what I did in case someone else has this same problem.

My Problem:
New Dell Inspiron 7520, Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit, Conexant SmartAudio HD Soundcard with latest Conexant driver from Dell Drivers website. Stereo Mix would not show up in Control Panel > Sound > Recording Tab even after right clicking on empty space and selecting Show Disabled and Show Disconnected Devices.

Solution:
Ensure you have the Conexant SmartAudio HD driver installed. You should see it under Sound, Video and Game Controllers in Device Manager. With the Conexant driver already installed and working the key is finding the exact location of the driver file. It might vary from one computer to another and also be called something else. Mine was called chdrt.inf and it was located in: C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\chdrt.inf_amd64_neutral_fa34defac299c440

If you are not sure where your .inf file is located you could do a windows search for text in files of the string: EpSettings\StereoMixEnable. It will most likely be a file with the extension .inf and be located in a sub folder of the System32 folder.

Right click on the .inf filename and select "Open With" then choose Notepad. Hit Control+F then search for StereoMix to find the three lines:
;HKR,%EPattributePath%\EpSettings\StereoMixEnable,Enable,1,01
;HKR,%EPattributePath%\EpSettings\StereoMixEnable,MixAssocSeq,1,E0,E0
;HKR,%EPattributePath%\EpSettings\StereoMixEnable,MuteGainSettings,1,00,00

Delete the semi-colons -->; and save the file. However Windows won't let you save the .inf file unless you change the files permissions. This gets complicated and a bit dangerous!

Basically right click on the .inf and then click these tabs/buttons.. Properties> Security>Advanced>Owner. The current owner should be TrustedInstaller. Change this to an account on your computer that has Administrator rights and you can log in as. So Click on Edit and in the "Change Owner To:" field there should be an entry there such as: Administrators (Your computer name\Administrators) so choose that then Ok and apply and Ok to close out all the dialog boxes.

Now right click on the .inf file again: Properties>Security>Edit>Select "Everyone" in "Group or User Names">Select checkbox for "Write" in the "Permissions for Everyone" section>Hit Apply and OK your way to close all the dialog boxes. Now you can save the .inf file you deleted the semi-colons from!

This step is VERY important. You must change back the permissions to the way they were. Right click on the .inf and as before change the Write permission by deselecting the checkbox for "Write" and also then change the Ownership of the .inf file back to TrustedInstaller. This time you go Owner>Edit>Other Users or Groups and type in NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller in the box and hit Check Names then Ok and Apply your way out of the dialog boxes.

Now finally re-install the driver: Here I got problems with the driver not being recognised and possibly it was because Windows 7 64 bit was saying it is not digitally signed so here's what I did: Start Menu>Right click Command Prompt>Run as administrator>type in this command and hit enter... bcdedit /set nointegritychecks ON.
To install the driver: Device Manager>Sound, Video and Game Controllers>Right click on Conexant SmartAudio HD>Update Driver Software>Browse my computer for driver software>Let me pick from a list..>Have Disk>Browse>Now in here you need to find the location of the .inf file you just edited, in my case I pasted in the path to the folder and hit enter then selected the chrdt.inf file and hit OK. When it was installed I went back to the command line as before and ran the command: bcdedit /set nointegritychecks OFF

Now I rebooted the computer and this time Stereo Mix DID show up in Control Panel > Sound > Recording Tab after right clicking on empty space and selecting Show Disabled and Show Disconnected Devices. I wonder why the Conexant driver has those three lines commented out thus disabling Stereo Mix?

Sorry for the long post but if I had found an idiots guide like this yesterday it would have saved me about 8 or 9 hours of googling and frustration!

Sources of info:
"How get Stereo Mix on Conexant sound card SOLUTION"
How get Stereo Mix on Conexant sound card SOLUTION - TOSHIBA FORUMS
"How to Configure System32"
How to Configure System32 | eHow
"How to Restore TrustedInstaller as Owner of a File in Vista and Windows 7"
TrustedInstaller - Restore as Owner
"Windows 7 - Disable signature verification of drivers"
Windows 7 - How to install unsigned drivers?

OH MY GOD Thank you so much! This problem had confounded me for over 2 years; now it's finally resolved!
I followed your instructions and successfully got Stereo Mix enabled on an Acer 3830tg, which had a Conexant sound card/driver.

Some info for reference/to help others: The specific driver I edited was called "AcrPebwa.inf", in the Windows 7 64bit folder ("W​7-64") of a driver package called "Audio_Conexant_8.54.1.55_W7x64". I think I obtained this from the Acer website for my laptop some time ago.
These files were the original downloaded copies, existing outside of System32 and the Windows folder, and therefore did not require any management of file permissions to edit.

The program used to edit the inf file was Notepad++

I had many instances of the commented lines in my inf file (about 35). They appeared to be recurring sets of lines for various models of soundcard hardware (though I could be wrong). I just uncommented all of them via the "Replace All" function.

I switched out the original "AcrPebwa.inf" file and placed my edited version into the original "W​7-64" folder within the driver package, and directed the driver installer wizard to the "W​7-64" folder. I don't know if this made any difference to anything, as opposed to using a folder with only the inf file in it.

I had some issues with having Windows install the driver:
The steps I took were: "Device Manager" -> Right-click on sound hardware -> "Update Driver" -> Browse to driver folder -> "Next"
Windows refused to use the new file, as it considered the currently installed driver to be up to date and not requiring an update.
This problem was circumvented by following the specific steps for installation within the original instructions in this thread, ie:
"Device Manager" -> Right-click on sound hardware -> "Update Driver" -> "Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer" -> "Have Disk" -> Browse to driver folder -> "Next"

I did not have much issue with the lack of driver signing - Windows only informed me of this, and gave me the option to 'install anyway'.

After a restart, Stereo Mix was available in the Recording tab of the Sound control panel.
I'm so happy with this; thanks for posting your solution!

Hi there. I have followed the instructions on this thread to the letter (although I didn't need to change the permissions for some reason), and even though I am using Command Prompt to set the integrity checks off I am STILL receiving 'Windows found driver software for your device but encountered an error while attempting to install it'. I do a lot of podcasting through audacity, and I desperately need to activate stereo mix on my machine. All these screenshots of successful activations tells me it MUST be something I'm doing wrong (I'm very computer illiterate) but I cannot work out what it is. After posting this I'm going to put the original inf file back in the Conexant folder (it's called oem12.inf on my machine) and try again from the top. But I strongly suspect this won't make a difference and I would really REALLY appreciate some help as I am getting really REALLY frustrated.

Thanks!

Tulty.

You might be missing a few different steps but for a start I don't think you are working with the correct .inf file. My .inf file is called chdrt.inf and is not stored in a Conexant folder but in a folder called:

C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\chdrt.inf_amd64_neutral_fa34defac299c440

So your first step is to find exactly where the .inf file is stored so you are making changes to the correct file.

Open up C:\Windows\System32 in Windows Explorer and search for this --> EpSettings\StereoMixEnable

It might take a few minutes but eventually Windows should find a .inf file and it probably won't be called oem12.inf by the way.

Open that file and follow the instructions in my earlier post.

Good Luck!

Oh my god, it worked. Thank you so much, I had almost no hope that a thread from early last year would still help me out, but it actually worked, stereo mix is actually an option now. I had to change the settings of Windows Explorer Search in order to search file contents but I can record from Stereo Mix now.

Thank you SO MUCH!

SeanieOS said:

I got it working!

The solution involved making changes to the .inf driver file and re-installing that file. Here I explain what I did in case someone else has this same problem.

My Problem:
New Dell Inspiron 7520, Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit, Conexant SmartAudio HD Soundcard with latest Conexant driver from Dell Drivers website. Stereo Mix would not show up in Control Panel > Sound > Recording Tab even after right clicking on empty space and selecting Show Disabled and Show Disconnected Devices.

Solution:
Ensure you have the Conexant SmartAudio HD driver installed. You should see it under Sound, Video and Game Controllers in Device Manager. With the Conexant driver already installed and working the key is finding the exact location of the driver file. It might vary from one computer to another and also be called something else. Mine was called chdrt.inf and it was located in: C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\chdrt.inf_amd64_neutral_fa34defac299c440

If you are not sure where your .inf file is located you could do a windows search for text in files of the string: EpSettings\StereoMixEnable. It will most likely be a file with the extension .inf and be located in a sub folder of the System32 folder.

Right click on the .inf filename and select "Open With" then choose Notepad. Hit Control+F then search for StereoMix to find the three lines:
;HKR,%EPattributePath%\EpSettings\StereoMixEnable,Enable,1,01
;HKR,%EPattributePath%\EpSettings\StereoMixEnable,MixAssocSeq,1,E0,E0
;HKR,%EPattributePath%\EpSettings\StereoMixEnable,MuteGainSettings,1,00,00

Delete the semi-colons -->; and save the file. However Windows won't let you save the .inf file unless you change the files permissions. This gets complicated and a bit dangerous!

Basically right click on the .inf and then click these tabs/buttons.. Properties> Security>Advanced>Owner. The current owner should be TrustedInstaller. Change this to an account on your computer that has Administrator rights and you can log in as. So Click on Edit and in the "Change Owner To:" field there should be an entry there such as: Administrators (Your computer name\Administrators) so choose that then Ok and apply and Ok to close out all the dialog boxes.

Now right click on the .inf file again: Properties>Security>Edit>Select "Everyone" in "Group or User Names">Select checkbox for "Write" in the "Permissions for Everyone" section>Hit Apply and OK your way to close all the dialog boxes. Now you can save the .inf file you deleted the semi-colons from!

This step is VERY important. You must change back the permissions to the way they were. Right click on the .inf and as before change the Write permission by deselecting the checkbox for "Write" and also then change the Ownership of the .inf file back to TrustedInstaller. This time you go Owner>Edit>Other Users or Groups and type in NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller in the box and hit Check Names then Ok and Apply your way out of the dialog boxes.

Now finally re-install the driver: Here I got problems with the driver not being recognised and possibly it was because Windows 7 64 bit was saying it is not digitally signed so here's what I did: Start Menu>Right click Command Prompt>Run as administrator>type in this command and hit enter... bcdedit /set nointegritychecks ON.
To install the driver: Device Manager>Sound, Video and Game Controllers>Right click on Conexant SmartAudio HD>Update Driver Software>Browse my computer for driver software>Let me pick from a list..>Have Disk>Browse>Now in here you need to find the location of the .inf file you just edited, in my case I pasted in the path to the folder and hit enter then selected the chrdt.inf file and hit OK. When it was installed I went back to the command line as before and ran the command: bcdedit /set nointegritychecks OFF

Now I rebooted the computer and this time Stereo Mix DID show up in Control Panel > Sound > Recording Tab after right clicking on empty space and selecting Show Disabled and Show Disconnected Devices. I wonder why the Conexant driver has those three lines commented out thus disabling Stereo Mix?

Sorry for the long post but if I had found an idiots guide like this yesterday it would have saved me about 8 or 9 hours of googling and frustration!

Sources of info:
"How get Stereo Mix on Conexant sound card SOLUTION"
How get Stereo Mix on Conexant sound card SOLUTION - TOSHIBA FORUMS
"How to Configure System32"
How to Take Permissions of a System 32 Folder | eHow
"How to Restore TrustedInstaller as Owner of a File in Vista and Windows 7"
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/15...ore-owner.html
"Windows 7 - Disable signature verification of drivers"
Windows 7 - How to install unsigned drivers?

Just made an account here to say THANK YOU. This solved my similar issue on my Windows 10 Dell Inpiron 7520.